The William Gates Building, or WGB, is a square building that houses the

Computer Laboratory A computer lab is a space where computer services are provided to a defined community. These are typically public libraries and academic institutions. Generally, users must follow a certain user policy to retain access to the computers. This usua ...

at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

, on the University's

West Cambridge West Cambridge is a university site to the west of Cambridge city centre in England. As part of the ''West Cambridge Master Plan'', several of the University of Cambridge's departments have relocated to the West Cambridge site from the centre ...

site in JJ Thomson Avenue south of the

Madingley Road Madingley Road is a major arterial road linking central Cambridge, England with Junction 13 of the M11 motorway. It passes by West Cambridge, a major new site where some University of Cambridge departments are being relocated. The road is des ...

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

. Construction on the building began in 1999 and was completed in 2001 at a cost of £20 million. Opened by

Maurice Wilkes Sir Maurice Vincent Wilkes (26 June 1913 – 29 November 2010) was an English computer scientist who designed and helped build the EDSAC, Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC), one of the earliest stored-program computers, and ...

, it was named after William H. Gates Sr., the father of

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

founder

Bill Gates William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American businessman and philanthropist. A pioneer of the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s, he co-founded the software company Microsoft in 1975 with his childhood friend ...

. The

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation The Gates Foundation is an American private foundation founded by Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates. Based in Seattle, Washington, it was launched in 2000 and is reported to be the third largest charitable foundation in the world, holding $ ...

provided 50% of the money for the building's construction.

Building features

The building has the following features: * The glass wall in the "fishbowl," a communal seating area in the building, is decorated with a paper-tape representation of the original

EDSAC The Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC) was an early British computer. Inspired by John von Neumann's seminal ''First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC'', the machine was constructed by Maurice Wilkes and his team at the Universit ...

"Initial Orders" (boot program) written by David Wheeler and of a program written by

in 1949 to compute squares * The building's main thoroughfare, called "The Street", has tiles that match the binary, UTF-8 representation of 'Computer Laboratory — AD 2001 — ☺' * The fishbowl contains the original door to the Mathematical laboratory

Energy efficiency

The William Gates Building aims to be energy-efficient. Its energy-saving measures include:Energy efficiency
/ref> * Aggressive sleep scheduling of desktop computers. * Use of a chilled-beam convection-based cooling system, with Oventrop valves, to cool rooms in the summer, and warm the floor above in the winter. * Turning off lights in corridors, and the street, using motion sensors.

References

{{reflist 2001 establishments in England Buildings and structures completed in 2001 Buildings and structures of the University of Cambridge University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Building features

Energy efficiency

See also

References